What is unique about the Quelccaya ice cap?
Quelccaya is the largest tropical ice cap in the world. It is located in the Central Andes of Peru and has a summit elevation of about 5,680 meters [18,635 feet]. A recent study suggests that the ice cap might soon cease to exist.
How old is the Quelccaya ice cap?
Huancane I moraines are less than 1,000 years old and reflect the Little Ice Age extent of the Quelccaya ice cap which at Quelccaya occurred between about 1490 and 1880. They also record expansions that occurred 1,000, 600, 400 and 200 years ago.
Where is the Quelccaya ice cap?
southern Peru
Quelccaya ice cap (QIC) is located in the Cordillera Vilcanota of southern Peru (13°56’S, 70°50′W, Fig. 1). With a median area of about 50.2 km2 over the 1975–2010 period5, QIC is the largest tropical ice cap.
Why are the glaciers in Peru melting?
Typical climate variations triggered by El Niño in the Peruvian Andes are an increased temperature, a reduction in precipitation and a delayed rainy season. These factors, they said, lead to increased glacial melting.
Why are there glaciers in the Andes?
Glaciers are vital resources for communities in and around the Andes, where meltwater is used for drinking, irrigation, and hydroelectric power — especially in arid regions and during periods of drought.
What are tropical glaciers?
Tropical glaciers reside in low-latitude regions on high mountains. Their mass and surface energy balance regimes differ from those of extratropical glaciers in terms of the dominant processes involved and seasonality; and their study allows insights into mid-tropospheric climate variations in the tropics.
How many glaciers are in Peru?
2,679 glaciers
Peru’s 2,679 glaciers, spread over 19 snow-capped mountain ranges, are the source of the vast majority of the country’s drinking water. The country is home to 70% of the world’s tropical glaciers, which are especially sensitive to warming temperatures.
How is global warming affecting the Andes?
On average, the glaciers in the Andean region – Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru – have lost over 50 per cent of their coverage since the 1960s. And in the last decade, the rates of retreat and loss of ice thickness have further increased, notably in the arid and semi-arid Andes of Argentina and Chile.
Does Colombia have glaciers?
Snowfields and glaciers in Colombia are limited to the highest peaks and ranges in the Cordillera Central and Cordillera Oriental and above the 4,700-meter elevation on the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. The total area of snowfields and glaciers was estimated to be about 104 square kilometers in the early 1970’s.
Are the Andes glaciers melting?
Using satellite data, scientists are documenting the inexorable melting of South America’s glaciers and ice fields, with Andean glaciers thinning by nearly three feet a year since 2000. The loss of ice poses a threat to water supplies and agriculture from Bolivia to Chile.
Why are the Andes glaciers melting?
Warming temperatures also have caused glaciers to swiftly recede, particularly in the southern Andes, where some glaciers have retreated 5.5 miles in the past century. Ninety-eight percent of Andean glaciers have shrunk this century.
How will the Andes mountains change?
Sadly, the tropical Andes are warming faster than anywhere else outside of the Arctic Circle. The glaciers are melting, less precipitation is reaching the mountaintops, and the páramos are drying out. Species are forced to migrate to higher and higher altitudes to seek out the cold temperatures they’re adapted to.
What is a tropical glacier?
Are the Andes growing or shrinking?
It’s been understood that the Andes mountain range has been growing as the Nazca oceanic plate slips underneath the South American continental plate, causing the Earth’s crust to shorten (by folding and faulting) and thicken.
